Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security

Aviation Security Screeners, United States

Prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, security screening
at the more than 400 major commercial airports around the United States
was the work of personnel employed by private firms that contracted with
airlines. One outcome of the attacks was the Aviation and Transportation
Security Act (ATSA), signed into law by President George W. Bush on
November 19, 2001, which placed security screeners under the control of
the newly created Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Early
assessments of the new program were uneven, and TSA has encountered a
number of challenges in what has proven to be one of the largest
mobilizations of a civilian agency in U.S. history.

The fact that ATSA was written and passed just two months after the
terrorist attacks serves to indicate the intensity of concern over air
safety that prevailed in early fall, 2001. In fact, the bill would have
passed even more quickly if it had not been for the thorny question of
whether the government or private enterprise should control security
screeners—and, assuming government control, whether Transportation
or Justice was the department better suited for this task.

Also symptomatic of the post-September 11 atmosphere was the spirit of
bipartisanship that pervaded the debate over ATSA. Arguments were as
heated as ever, but instead of the usual division between Republicans and
Democrats, this time the disagreement was between the House of
Representatives and the Senate. All agreed that the old system of airlines
hiring security screeners and baggage handlers had to be changed and that
a new ticket tax would pay for the new federal service. Legislators in the
House, however, maintained that the Department of Transportation should
hire security contractors, whereas their counterparts in the Senate
favored a situation in which the Department of Justice would oversee a
program made up of government employees.

In the end, the two houses agreed on a compromise. Over the year that
followed passage of the bill, screeners under the employment of the
federal government would be phased in at 419 commercial hub airports
nationwide. At the same time, up to five airports would participate in a
trial program whereby they could use private contractors. After two years,
all airports would be permitted to use private contractors under federal
supervision, assuming they received approval to do so from the Department
of Transportation.

As the debate took place on Capitol Hill, many supporters of free-market
economics maintained that private enterprise could inevitably do a better
job than government. Yet, the World Trade Center attacks had occurred when
private firms were utilized at airports, and as legislators debated ATSA,
two companies had already come under scrutiny for alleged violations of
federal law. In one case, for instance, the Transportation Department
found that a security company had failed to conduct background checks, and
had hired screeners with criminal records.

As of January 2002, TSA had just 13 employees, but by November 2002, a
year after the passage of ATSA, there were 47,000 newly trained federal
security screeners at airports nationwide. TSA spokesman Robert Johnson
compared the mobilization to the rush of enlistees that followed U.S.
entry into World War II in December, 1941. Others were not as sanguine in
their appraisal. Representative Harold Rogers (R-KY) maintained that the
average screener at his home facility, Kentucky Bluegrass Airport in
Lexington, processed just four people per hour.

There were other concerns as well. According to Transportation Department
assistant inspector general for auditing Alexis Stefani, security
companies had begun increasing their fees once the government, rather than
airlines, was paying the bill. Some of this money went toward increasing
the notoriously low pay of airport screeners, which had been about $10,000
a year, to somewhere between $23,600 and $35,400. But, as one company had
nearly doubled the rate it charged the government, it had increased
employee pay by less than half that much.

Adding to TSA's challenges with the screener program were several
legal battles. ATSA had contained a clause barring non-U.S. citizens from
employment as airport security screeners, but in November,
2002—just as the newly mobilized screeners went to work—a
federal judge in California found the ban on non-citizens
unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE), a union of government workers, had attempted to unionize
security screeners, a move TSA officials blocked on grounds that a grant
of collective bargaining rights to screeners could jeopardize national
security. AFGE leaders vowed to continue the effort to unionize the
screeners.

Beginning December 31, 2002, all checked bags were supposed to be screened
for bombs, but as the deadline approached, it was clear that TSA would
have difficulty meeting it. Screeners had already begun a practice of
matching bags to passengers—that is, ensuring that for each name
listed as the owner of the bag, there was a passenger with that name. Bag
matching had been a practice on international flights since the 1980s, but
many critics maintained that it would do nothing to stop suicide bombers
such as those who perpetrated the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Meanwhile, confiscated items—some of them as unusual as deer
antlers and rolling pins—piled up at airports. Some facilities had
become so overwhelmed with surplus

A security screener uses a magnetic wand to check a passenger at
Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in February,
2002.

AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS

.

items that they contracted with scrap-metal companies to haul away all the
knives, scissors, and other sharp items confiscated. Passengers did not
have to give up these items permanently, assuming the item was not illegal
in the first place, and some airports had facilities for travelers to mail
home items that they could not take on planes.

In contrast to these challenges and the dim prognoses offered by some
critics, there was much about the federal screener program that pointed to
success. The rockiness of its early months was considered inevitable in
light of the monumental task administrators faced after September 11.
Clearly, a mobilization such as the one required to federalize the
screener program can only be properly evaluated after several months or
years, not just a few weeks.